VV Show #46 - Jeremy Stoppelman of Yelp

Jeremy Stoppelman is the co-founder and CEO of Yelp, a site where users can write and share reviews of local businesses. Everyone's now a restaurant critic. However, local reviews were not the original focus, but just one of several features in the earlier versions of the site. Noticing the growth of this buried feature, Yelp re-tooled the site around reviews and hasn't looked back since. Does this story sound familiar? Jeremy's the former VP of Engineering at PayPal, which also had to drastically alter its business early in its life. Listen in to hear Jeremy's thoughts on growing a local enterprise, giving users and identity, and how to recognize and act upon the need for change.

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Comments

Great job Greg! I hope this is a sign the painful (for me) VV hiatus is over :-)

You're damn good at this stuff.

Posted by: John P. at June 25, 2007 9:52 AM

Fantastic interview! I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly Jeremy's note on customers driving the business and where it should go, as well as the need to create a great community of yelpers (focus on that first, making $ comes later).

A great interview. We are in the middle/late angel investment stage. Each day is filled with ups and downs and outside distractions like you described. We are staying focused on our vision and tactical goals to get to the next phase - VC land. Any words of wisdom based upon your VC experience? Our initial 'toe in the water' was eye opening. Feels like selling our souls is required until we have a product that is at a point where we may not need VC money. Where's the optimal intersection point?

Nice podcast. What I find so interesting about this is that Yelp and Judy's Book were essentially the same service backed by VC funding, but yet Yelp is thriving while Judy's book took a dive. It could be attributed to a lot of things, but it is truly remarkeable the success Yelp has had.